Read Online CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: George Saunders
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ordered me to Windex it daily or face extremely grim consequences.
Tuesday a car pulls up as Claude and I approach the burial pit with the Carlisle raccoons. We drag the cage into a shrub and squat panting. Claude whispers that I smell. He whispers that if he weighed four hundred he’d take into account the people around him and go on a diet. The sky’s the purple of holy card Crucifixion scenes, the rending of the firmament and all that. A pale girl in a sari gets out of the car and walks to the lip of the pit. She paces off the circumference and scribbles in a notebook. She takes photos. She slides down on her rear and comes back up with some coon bones in a Baggie.
After she leaves we rush back to the office. Tim’s lividand starts baby-oiling his trademark blackjack. He says no more coons in the pit until further notice. He says we’re hereby in crisis mode and will keep the coons on blue ice in our cubicles and if need be wear nose clips. He says the next time she shows up he may have to teach her a lesson about jeopardizing our meal ticket. He says animal rights are all well and good but there’s a substantive difference between a cute bunny or cat and a disgusting raccoon that thrives on carrion and trash and creates significant sanitation problems with its inquisitiveness.
“Oh, get off it,” Claude says, affection for Tim shining from his dull eyes. “You’d eliminate your own mother if there was a buck in it for you.”
“Undeniably,” Tim says. “Especially if she knocked over a client trash can or turned rabid.”
Then he hands me the corporate Visa and sends me to HardwareNiche for coolers. At HardwareNiche you can get a video of
Bloodiest Crimes of the Century Reenacted.
You can get a video of Great Bloopers made during the filming of
Bloodiest Crimes of the Century Reenacted.
You can get a bird feeder that plays “How Dry I Am” while electronically emitting a soothing sensation birds love. You can get a Chill’n’Pray, an overpriced cooler with a holographic image of a famous religious personality on the lid. I opt for Buddha. I can almost hear Tim sarcastically comparing our girths and asking since when has cost control been thrown to the wind. But the Chill’n’Prays are all they’ve got. I’m on Tim’s shit list if I do and on Tim’s shit list if I don’t. He has an actual shit list. Freeda generated it and enhanced it with a graphic of an angry piece of feces stamping its feet.
I buy the coolers, hoping in spite of myself that he’ll applaudmy decisiveness. When I get back to the office everyone’s gone for the night. The Muzak’s off for a change and loud whacks and harsh words are floating up from the basement via the heat ducts. Before long Tim tromps up the stairs swearing. I hide pronto. He shouts thanks for nothing, and says he could have had more rough-and-tumble fun dangling a cat over a banister, and that there’s nothing duller than a clerk with the sexual imagination of a grape.
“Document placement and retrieval specialist,” Freeda says in a hurt tone.
“Whatever,” Tim says, and speeds off in his Porsche.
I emerge overwhelmed from my cubicle. Over her shoulder and through the plate glass is a shocked autumnal moon. Freeda’s cheek is badly bruised. Otherwise she’s radiant with love. My mouth hangs open.
“What can I say?” she says. “I can’t get enough of the man.”
“Good night,” I say, and forget about my car, and walk the nine miles home in a daze.
All day Wednesday I prepare to tell Tim off. But I’m too scared. Plus he could rightly say she’s a consenting adult. What business is it of mine? Why defend someone who has no desire to be defended? Instead I drop a few snots in his coffee cup and use my network access privileges to cancel his print jobs. He asks can I work late and in spite of myself I fawningly say sure. I hate him. I hate myself. Everybody else goes home. Big clouds roll in. I invoice like mad. Birds light on the
Tuesday a car pulls up as Claude and I approach the burial pit with the Carlisle raccoons. We drag the cage into a shrub and squat panting. Claude whispers that I smell. He whispers that if he weighed four hundred he’d take into account the people around him and go on a diet. The sky’s the purple of holy card Crucifixion scenes, the rending of the firmament and all that. A pale girl in a sari gets out of the car and walks to the lip of the pit. She paces off the circumference and scribbles in a notebook. She takes photos. She slides down on her rear and comes back up with some coon bones in a Baggie.
After she leaves we rush back to the office. Tim’s lividand starts baby-oiling his trademark blackjack. He says no more coons in the pit until further notice. He says we’re hereby in crisis mode and will keep the coons on blue ice in our cubicles and if need be wear nose clips. He says the next time she shows up he may have to teach her a lesson about jeopardizing our meal ticket. He says animal rights are all well and good but there’s a substantive difference between a cute bunny or cat and a disgusting raccoon that thrives on carrion and trash and creates significant sanitation problems with its inquisitiveness.
“Oh, get off it,” Claude says, affection for Tim shining from his dull eyes. “You’d eliminate your own mother if there was a buck in it for you.”
“Undeniably,” Tim says. “Especially if she knocked over a client trash can or turned rabid.”
Then he hands me the corporate Visa and sends me to HardwareNiche for coolers. At HardwareNiche you can get a video of
Bloodiest Crimes of the Century Reenacted.
You can get a video of Great Bloopers made during the filming of
Bloodiest Crimes of the Century Reenacted.
You can get a bird feeder that plays “How Dry I Am” while electronically emitting a soothing sensation birds love. You can get a Chill’n’Pray, an overpriced cooler with a holographic image of a famous religious personality on the lid. I opt for Buddha. I can almost hear Tim sarcastically comparing our girths and asking since when has cost control been thrown to the wind. But the Chill’n’Prays are all they’ve got. I’m on Tim’s shit list if I do and on Tim’s shit list if I don’t. He has an actual shit list. Freeda generated it and enhanced it with a graphic of an angry piece of feces stamping its feet.
I buy the coolers, hoping in spite of myself that he’ll applaudmy decisiveness. When I get back to the office everyone’s gone for the night. The Muzak’s off for a change and loud whacks and harsh words are floating up from the basement via the heat ducts. Before long Tim tromps up the stairs swearing. I hide pronto. He shouts thanks for nothing, and says he could have had more rough-and-tumble fun dangling a cat over a banister, and that there’s nothing duller than a clerk with the sexual imagination of a grape.
“Document placement and retrieval specialist,” Freeda says in a hurt tone.
“Whatever,” Tim says, and speeds off in his Porsche.
I emerge overwhelmed from my cubicle. Over her shoulder and through the plate glass is a shocked autumnal moon. Freeda’s cheek is badly bruised. Otherwise she’s radiant with love. My mouth hangs open.
“What can I say?” she says. “I can’t get enough of the man.”
“Good night,” I say, and forget about my car, and walk the nine miles home in a daze.
All day Wednesday I prepare to tell Tim off. But I’m too scared. Plus he could rightly say she’s a consenting adult. What business is it of mine? Why defend someone who has no desire to be defended? Instead I drop a few snots in his coffee cup and use my network access privileges to cancel his print jobs. He asks can I work late and in spite of myself I fawningly say sure. I hate him. I hate myself. Everybody else goes home. Big clouds roll in. I invoice like mad. Birds light on the
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